Home > Wines We Love > 2021 Latta ‘Rouge Deluxe’ Syrah

This is the first syrah that Owen Latta has made since 2015, and it’s stunning stuff. An incredibly complex and darkly seductive wine, with wild fruits accented by exotic spices and craggy minerals – midweight, chewy and speaking loudly of place.

Producer
Latta
Region

Pyrenees
RRP

$32
Vintage

2021
Variety/Varieties

Shiraz (Syrah)
Alc./Vol.

13.5%

Coming from the Chapoutier vineyard in the Pyrenees, this is the first syrah that Owen Latta has made since 2015. And it’s stunning stuff, an incredibly complex and darkly seductive wine, with wild fruits accented by exotic spices and craggy minerals – midweight, chewy and speaking loudly of place.

Tasting note

This is so bright but also so mineral, with wild dark fruits – forest berries, sour plums and cherries – laced with a granitic minerality, white pepper and dark spices such as brown cardamom, star anise and cassia. There’s a gentle spritz on the palate that marries with natural acid zip and linear tannins to give this a buoyant freshness that sits in balance with the dark fruit flavours and crushed rock mineral notes.

Themes of this wine

Syrah/shiraz

Shiraz dominates the Australian wine industry, accounting for nearly a third of this country’s vines. The grape’s traditional home is in France’s Northern Rhône, with wines that combine elegance and power, while Australia is perhaps best known for the muscular styles from warmer areas. Today, drinkers of Australian shiraz are spoilt for choice with expressions ranging from the elegant and spicy to the monumental.

Pyrenees

The wine zone of Western Victoria contains the three major regions of the Grampians, the Pyrenees and Henty. Being the furthest inland to the north-east, the Pyrenees is more continental in climate with warm days and cold nights. The Pyrenees were planted to vines in the 19th century, with the last vines disappearing in the 1940s, before replanting in the 1960s. Interestingly, sparkling wine was an early focus in the Pyrenees, though the warm summer days make ripening later picked red varieties, such as cabernet sauvignon, a reliable proposition. The fact that both things are possible is testament to the heterogenous nature of the region. The modern founders are still the region’s most acclaimed names, such as Blue Pyrenees, Taltarni, Mount Avoca and Dalwhinnie.

Home > Wines We Love > 2021 Latta ‘Bad Reputation’ Blanc

Owen Latta’s take on viognier is a world away from the norm of exotically lifted wines, dripping in apricot floral. Instead, his is a wine of orchard fruits creeping to ripeness with pops of honeycomb and nuts, a slip of texture and a gently pithy palate to gnaw on.

Producer
Latta
Region

Pyrenees
RRP

$32
Vintage

2021
Variety/Varieties

Viognier
Alc./Vol.

12.4%

Owen Latta’s take on viognier is a world away from the norm of exotically lifted wines, dripping in apricot floral. Instead, his is a wine of orchard fruits creeping to ripeness with pops of honeycomb and nuts, a slip of texture and a gently pithy palate to gnaw on.

Tasting note

Hazy green gold in the glass, this has lifted notes of crushed cider apples, white peach and not-yet ripe apricot. There are some nutty notes accented with caramel and honeycomb, and a little custard apple. The lack of fining and filtration gives this a chewy, textural quality, combining with gentle acidity to structure this through the finish.

Themes of this wine

Viognier

A highly aromatic grape, viognier is very distinctly scented with apricot, which can vary from the flesh, to the kernel, to apricot blossom, and those characters can be extremely exotic when quite ripe. It is also a grape that is quite phenolic but with low acidity. So, ripe examples will tend to be luscious and rich with high alcohol. Picked earlier and the apricot notes are more delicate, with acidity more of a feature.

Sulphur dioxide

Sulphur is a naturally occurring preservative and antioxidant, which helps to protect wine from losing its natural flavours and from undesirable oxidative reactions to occur. Sulphur can be used at various stages in the winemaking process, and natural winemakers can even use it, though only when bottling, and only in small doses. In fact, many winemakers prefer to only use it at bottling to protect their wine on what can be a long journey before it is opened. Some makers believe that a wine without sulphur is more expressive of the both the natural flavours fruit and the expression of site, but much care needs to be taken to ensure those wines are stable and protected.

Un-fined and unfiltered

Many wines are filtered and fined before bottling. Fining is a way of clarifying the appearance of a wine and also to remove unwanted phenolics that may make a wine bitter or simply too tannic. Common fining agents are casein (milk protein), egg whites and isinglass (obtained from fish), while bentonite (clay) is also commonly used, and enables vegan labelling. Filtering a wine removes unwanted matter, too, and if a wine is sterile filtered it will stop microbial spoilage, the production of brettanomyces and refermentation in bottle if the wine has residual sugar in it. Some makers believe that fining and filtration removes flavour and texture, so avoid it, and while some wines may look hazy, perfectly clear wines can be made, too.

Pyrenees

The wine zone of Western Victoria contains the three major regions of the Grampians, the Pyrenees and Henty. Being the furthest inland to the north-east, the Pyrenees is more continental in climate with warm days and cold nights. The Pyrenees were planted to vines in the 19th century, with the last vines disappearing in the 1940s, before replanting in the 1960s. Interestingly, sparkling wine was an early focus in the Pyrenees, though the warm summer days make ripening later picked red varieties, such as cabernet sauvignon, a reliable proposition. The fact that both things are possible is testament to the heterogenous nature of the region. The modern founders are still the region’s most acclaimed names, such as Blue Pyrenees, Taltarni, Mount Avoca and Dalwhinnie.

Home > Wines We Love > 2021 Latta ‘Presence’

This early release wine from Owen Latta captures a fragrant but complexly spicy side to the grape, with amaro/vermouth seasoning the wild red fruits, while a meshing of cool tannins and zippy acidity gives this real pep.

Producer
Latta
Region

Pyrenees
RRP

$38
Vintage

2021
Variety/Varieties

Grenache
Alc./Vol.

13.5%

With the grenache renaissance in full swing, it’s great to see some Victorian examples making their own mark. This early release wine from Owen Latta captures a fragrant but complexly spicy side to the grape, with amaro/vermouth seasoning the wild red fruits, while a meshing of cool tannins and zippy acidity gives this real pep.

Tasting note

This is a light expression of grenache, 20–30% whole bunch and “pressed off after a week or so” and with no sulphur dioxide employed at all. This is fine and vibrant, but with plenty of flavour, notes of amaro spice, orange peel, wormwood, white pepper, with flashes of redcurrants, sour cherry juice and pomegranate. This is fresh, and it will take a light chill, but there’s plenty of tannin too, along with zippy cranberry acidity, a touch of rosewater to finish, with a puckering of cool tannins.

Themes of this wine

Chilled reds

There was a time that the only red you would consider chilling was a generic Beaujolais, but the reality is that room temperature is generally too warm for most red wine. If you’re not blessed with a climate-controlled cellar, a brief stint in the fridge will do most reds a favour, while some lighter reds can take more of a chill, and indeed many are now made to be drunk colder, if not exactly fridge cold. No wine, red white or sparkling is enhanced by the frosty temperature of a domestic fridge, but a stint on the bench will soon fix that. With red wines, those with bigger tannins will do less well cooler, while aromatic lighter bodied wines will generally perform well with a refreshing chill to them.

Grenache

The great grape of the Southern Rhône, grenache, has also found many homes around the world, from Spain, to Italy, to California, while Australia is home to the world’s oldest productive grenache vines, planted in 1948. Today, a renaissance is seeing the grape championed, with makers in McLaren Vale arguably turning out the most compelling examples.

Sulphur dioxide

Sulphur is a naturally occurring preservative and antioxidant, which helps to protect wine from losing its natural flavours and from undesirable oxidative reactions to occur. Sulphur can be used at various stages in the winemaking process, and natural winemakers can even use it, though only when bottling, and only in small doses. In fact, many winemakers prefer to only use it at bottling to protect their wine on what can be a long journey before it is opened. Some makers believe that a wine without sulphur is more expressive of the both the natural flavours fruit and the expression of site, but much care needs to be taken to ensure those wines are stable and protected.

Whole bunch

Yep, the whole thing. If you ferment with whole bunches, you’ll get a different result. The stems add more tannin, and tannin with a slightly different feel in the mouth to grape skin or oak tannin. You’ll also get some of those berries fermenting more or less whole, which yields a brighter fruit profile alongside a raft of spices.

Pyrenees

The wine zone of Western Victoria contains the three major regions of the Grampians, the Pyrenees and Henty. Being the furthest inland to the north-east, the Pyrenees is more continental in climate with warm days and cold nights. The Pyrenees were planted to vines in the 19th century, with the last vines disappearing in the 1940s, before replanting in the 1960s. Interestingly, sparkling wine was an early focus in the Pyrenees, though the warm summer days make ripening later picked red varieties, such as cabernet sauvignon, a reliable proposition. The fact that both things are possible is testament to the heterogenous nature of the region. The modern founders are still the region’s most acclaimed names, such as Blue Pyrenees, Taltarni, Mount Avoca and Dalwhinnie.

2021 Latta ‘Rouge Deluxe’ Syrah Pyrenees

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Syrah/shiraz

Pyrenees

Owen Latta’s take on viognier is a world away from the norm of exotically lifted wines, dripping in apricot floral. Instead, his is a wine of orchard fruits creeping to ripeness with pops of honeycomb and nuts, a slip of texture and a gently pithy palate to gnaw on.

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Viognier

Sulphur dioxide

Un-fined and unfiltered

Pyrenees

Tasting note

Themes of this wine

Chilled reds

Grenache

Sulphur dioxide

Whole bunch

Pyrenees

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